I’m curious if anyone has tried using a regular lead (graphite) pencil to put black color on a model and then clearing over it. I have had much trouble with getting color into very small areas such as window recesses on small scale ship models and was thinking trying this might be worth a shot. I can not cleanly paint these tiny areas with a brush and the finest pointed ink pens are often too large to not get ink where I don’t want it. I’m thinking a fairly sharp pencil point would give me great control but I’m not sure about how it would look or hold up to being clear coated.
I know there are pencils graded such as 8B which are very black. I would think if you were to blow off any flakes of graphite with compressed air and then clear over it that might work. I’ve never heard of anyone trying it so I figured I would ask here for opinions. To be clear I’m not thinking of coloring substantial areas but rather tiny details. I colored a square on a piece of painted styrene with a #2 pencil and sprayed clear over it and there didn’t seem to be any change in the color or any running. I’m trying to think outside the box. Thanks for any input you may have.
I have used drafting pencils with soft lead for panel lines. have to be super sharp.
Not sure how small the window recesses are, but Tamiya makes an assortment of 4 pointed paint brushes, the smallest of which is sharper than the point of a needle. Get your paint mixture just right, I’ll bet you could touch the center of each recess with that brush and get black paint to just fill the recess cleanly. Another possibility might be black Flory wash. You just clean up the area around the window recesses with a sponge dampened with water afterward. The rest of it will stay in the recesses.
Hi Chris. I have never heard of anyone doing this before, but then no one had heard of colour modulation once either. Give it a try, preferably on a test piece, and see what happens. If it doesn’t work, there’s still Eaglecash’s suggestion to fall back on.
Fun old fact, in the era of raised panel lines; it was a technique to draw a sharp line along one side of the raised ridge in order to bring it out.
The same can be done with a recessed panel line except that the pencil leaves two lines; one along each edge of the gully.
The one failure mode I dealt with was that a clear coat usually would float up the graphite particules and make a mess.
Bill
A few years back, I picked up a set of Molotow ‘Blackliner’ pens at the local Hobby Lobby. The set ranges in size from 0.4mm down to 0.05mm in diameter, which is a little finer than my pencil sharpener will allow. The ink is permanent, has held up well under both Dullcote and Glosscote lacquer, and seems to stick well to most surfaces. Works like a charm for eyes on 1/35 figures, might work well here, too.
Back in the bad old days when draftsmen (and high-school drafting class punters like myself) used actual pencils, we had a neat gizmo called a pencil-pointer, a little rotary thing about the size of a cabinet door knob that kept a needle-sharp point on the old 2H or 4H. I still use one to this day. (They’re available, like everything else, on Amazon…and pretty cheap.)
That will solve that ‘gully’ problem and allow for a single nice clean line down the recessed panel in question.
Thanks so much for all of your responses, they have been quite helpful. There are also a few products here I was not aware of.
Hi;
For anything like that I use a 2H Draftsmans pencil that has been shaped to a two sided Chisel point. That way the lead sits right at the Bottom of the Groove. Now, when done ,I wipe the area with Plain water to get rid of graphite dust and Clear away. First coat MUST be a frost coat. Then Done deal!
I use the #2 pencils for metal wear and to fill in the retractable oleo part in gears leaving a realistic metal finish. Prismacolor makes color pencils like black or dark brown without leaving the matallic sheen of the #2. Best results are when used over flat paint. Over gloss paint it doesn’t work too well.
You can use a 4B lead (graphite) pencil on bare plastic (not vinyl). I actually do that to color tires (good control) and then airbrush them with testors dullcote. Works every time. Did that to my M20 years ago.
Enjoy!
I would think the graphite would leave a more metalic sheen. I use soft pencils to simulate metal wear, but only after laying down the final top coat of clear finish.
Perhaps black water color paint (the cheap kid sets would work) with a drop of soap to break surface tension would flow into the window recess. After it dries, use a damp q-tip to wipe off the excess.
[dto:]
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Try it on a scrap piece or sprue.
The pencil color is a bit fragile until dullcoted but rock solid when dry.
A CLEAR finish and a FLAT finish are two different things.
The testor’s DULLCOTE LACQUER kills ANY sheen.
I use a 4B pencil for a metallic sheen too, but that’s always the last touch.
NO overcoat of any kind to preserve a metallic finish.
I think he said he already tested it on a piece of painted styrene[:S].
Clear is the difference. Clear is NOT flat.
I’ll paint a black base and then color gun barrels with graphite. If I’m feeling lazy I won’t shave the graphite down and will just draw on the black barrels.
I have a 50 gram bottle of ultra fine graphite powder that I use for gun smoke on aircraft as well as giving things a metallic sheen. Its enough for several lifetimes of modeling probably, but its really easy to use.